Another Sleepless Night
by Bittersweet Treats
Summary: Lance has always been surrounded by noise. And of course, he welcomed the noise as it was a pleasant escape from his thoughts. They used to be a quiet random thought that passed over his conscience, but know its a full blown mantra being screamed in his head so loud that it feels like a hammer is being pounded into his skull. And his nights are sleepless.


Lance rolled over in his bed to stare at the ceiling. His head pounded, making him nauseous and preventing his body from shutting down and going to sleep.

It annoyed him to no end, because today had been a long day and he wanted desperately to sleep. On top of that, they already had another mission planned for the next day. It was supposed to be long and hard. And they had to wake up early.

He groaned at he shut his eyes, bringing his hands up to his face to rub at them. The silence seemed to gobble up the noise, muffling it.

Lance hated the silence. He always had. Whenever there was silence, it meant that you were alone. HIs house was never quiet. Even when everyone was asleep, there was some sort of sound.

Weather it was snoring or the shift and creak of a bedframe when someone shifted. The jingle of the dogs or cats collar when they got up to do their business.

And during the day, it was loud. Sound bombarded Lance from all sides. His siblings and nieces, and nephews screaming at each other. Laughter echoing down the hallways of the huge house they lived in. Dogs barked as they were played with.

Even when he got to the garrison, it was never silent. Machines were always making some sort of sound. There was always one or two students up studying.

But space was different.

It was quiet. And in space, sound didn't travel that far.

The only time it wasn't too quiet was when there was a battle going on, or all of the paladins were training.

Otherwise, it was too silent. His thoughts were allowed to rampage across his mind and drown out everything else.

And they were never good thoughts.

Lance was depressed. He had been diagnosed when he was seven years old. Back then, his family was smaller. It was him, his parents and his two older siblings, Vanessa and Markus. Even at seven, he was greatly impacted by his depression, barely finding a reason to get out of bed in the morning and he rarely ate.

When he was left alone, his thoughts had festered and by the time he was ten, he had already devolved into not caring for himself. He felt he wasn't worth the effort or the space, so he barely tried to participate in society.

But when his sister had married and given birth to twins, the house got a little louder. His mother gave birth to triplets when he was thirteen. And the house got louder. His aunt moved in with her two kids, and the house got louder.

Soon, there were fifteen people living in their house. Three dogs, two cats, a coop of chickens and a horse. It was never silent. Something was always making noise.

He used this sound to block out those feelings of worthlessness. It worked. He slept more, he ate more, and he started to act like the bright and happy person he was at the garrison.

And then, he went into space. It was quiet. They were a small family filled with quiet people. Shiro and Keith were always silent unless they were required to talk. Pidge talked whenever she wanted to, but its was just empty insults. Hunk was the only one that actually spoke the most, besides Lance. Coran and Allura were barely around enough to actually make a difference to the noise levels. And it was driving Lance insane.

He hadn't slept for a full night since they saved the Balmera. And in the past week, he had slept for maybe an hour.

It was taking a toll on the blue paladins body. He was sore and exhausted, but nothing he did helped. His exhaustion was making his formerly stable mental health down the drain.

Lance ruled from his bed, sitting up with his feet on the ground. The world around him silent.

He stood and walked out of his room, down the hallway, looking anywhere and everywhere, just trying to fill his mind with things that would drown out the screaming of his thoughts.

He stopped short when he heard noises coming from the training room and he entered the room.

It was Keith, not that Lance expected it to be anyone else. Keith practically lived in the Training Deck.

Lance entered the room, standing to the side as Keith took down the training droid. His bayard was merely a blur of red with how fast he moved. It looked like the red paladin had been there for a while. Three empty water pouches were discarded to the side where his jacket lay, two untouched ones on top of the jacket. He was dripping with sweat and despite his accuracy, Lance could see he was slightly more sluggish than normal.

Keith must have seen him because he rolled out of the way of the droids staff and called, "End training sequence."

The robot stopped, freezing in its tracks so shut down and then fell through the floor.

Keith transformed his Bayard into the storage form and walked over to collapse against the wall Lance was sitting against.

"Don't come near me while covered in sweat! You can stink all you want, but I have standards."

The other boy snorted, "Really? You're the one who came in here. You don't have to be here at all."

Lance rolled his eyes, "So. Doesn't mean I wanted you over here. Maybe I just came into here to watch you train."

"Why would you do that?"

Lance shrugged, his gaze turning to where Keith's jacket was. He didn't want to tell Keith that he was here because his thoughts were too loud. It made him feel like he was whining for no reason. There were people who had worse afflictions than an adversity to silence.

"Wel, you're here, so it's obviously something. Do you want to train?" Keith asked as he stood.

Lance watched him walk to the centre of the room. His body whined at him for eve. Thinking about accepting the prospect of training. It was aching from lack of sleep, and he highly doubted that he would last even a minute against Keith. The boy was far stronger than he was, and he actually slept. Or at least, he looked like he slept.

"Nah, I think I'm good. I might just watch you for a while."

Keith shrugged, "your loss."

Lance heard him call for the sequence to start again. He watched Keith hack and slash against the training bot, cutting into the metal, to send it through the floor and summon another.

The sound of metal gains metal lulled his thoughts into silence. Keith's grunts and panting breath gave him relief from a headache and nausea that had plagued him for a while. And even though the fluorescent lights could be seen behind his closed eyes, and the discomfort of leaning against the wall, Lance drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, he woke up, well rested in his room with a blanket pulled up to his chin

The same thing happened a couple of week from then. And again a few days after until it was a nightly thing.

Keith never complained. Lance gave him a reason to actually sleep when he was finished training, and Lance was given something to lull him to sleep. They never talked about it, and when Lance came into the training room to watch the red paladin, they never talked more than a greeting.

This continued for a while. The two of them helping each other with problems without even uttering a word, It all ended when Shiro walked into the training room one night while Lance and Keith were sitting next to each other, basking in the silence that was their strange relationship. Keith was taking a small break to breathe and LAnce was here for what he normally was.

He looked at the two of them in surprise, as if he wasn't sure why they were here.

"Do you two do this often?"

Keith and Lance exchanged glances, their silent pact to not talk about it strained. Keith was the one who answered.

"Um, kinda. I come here to practice and Lance makes sure that I go to bed a decent time."

Shiro looked over at Lance, his eyes lighting with curiosity, "That's nice of you Lance. How do you manage to convince him to leave? I try all the time and it doesn't work."

Lance turned away to look at his feet. He knew that his face was starting to flush.

"I guess I just listen to him because he's more convincing than you Shiro. You are also partially a hypocrite, so that could be why."

Shiro rolled his eyes at Keith, "Of course."

The three of them lapsed into silence, broken by Shiro again, "We should all be getting to be soon. It would be in the best interest for all of us."

Keith and Lance nodded. It seemed that their normal routine would be interrupted, and Lance hoped that he would still be able to fall asleep.

They all made there was out of the training room to go to their dorms. Each went into their rooms alone, biding each other goodnight.

Lance quickly slipped into his pyjamas and then into his bed. He closed his eyes and waited for sleep to take him.

…

…

…

It didn't work. His thoughts were actually becoming louder and louder, even if he had only been out of the training room for a moment, it seemed his brain would not let him sleep.

He quickly sat up, debating on asking if Keith wanted to go back. But he quickly shot the idea down. He didn't want to bother the other boy or make himself seem needy. It would be better if he just dealt with his problems himself.

Lance sighed and sat back down in his bed. He buried his face in his hands, debating on the other options he had. Before he could really contemplate anything, a knock sounded on his door.

He looked up in surprise, rose from his bed and cross the room and open the door.

Keith stood before him, a shamed blushed on his face, "Hey. I was wondering if I could hang out with you for a while. I'm not really tired, and I'm used to hanging out with you until you fall asleep, which lets my body know its time to sleep."

Lance blinked at him, "Um, alright. I guess."

The two of them retreated into the room, settling on the bed and looked anywhere but at each other.

"I, I'm sorry that I made everything awkward, I just, I can't sleep."

Lance glanced at him and gave a soft smile, "It's alright. I've kinda been using your training routine to quiet my brain."

"Quiet your brain? I didn't think that was possible." Keith joked lightly while smiling at him. Lance rolled his eyes.

"Really, I'm surprised too."

The two of them lapsed into silence, but this time it was comfortable. With Keith sitting next to him, Lance began to feel sleepy. Maybe it wasn't Keith's training that kept his brain quiet, but Keith. It made no sense in the long run, but to Lance, it didn't matter.

Sleep overtook his brain. The next morning, he woke up, Keith and him were curled up close to one another. From that night on, if they didn't train in the training room until Lance fell asleep, they slept in his room, basking in the comfort of each others presence.


End file.
